


A Sorry Epitaph

by fleurjaune



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Needs Help, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Emilie Agreste Lives, F/M, Flashbacks, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth Wins, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Infidelity, Mentioned Alya Césaire and Nino Lahiffe, Minor Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi, Minor Emilie Agreste/Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Minor Injuries, Minor Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Nino Lahiffe, Minor Violence, Moral Ambiguity, Murder-Suicide, POV Multiple, Parent Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Permanent Character Death, Self-Sacrifice, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Everything, Unhealthy Relationships, honestly the rating is for these tags/the themes, these tags are for different characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:59:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29250339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurjaune/pseuds/fleurjaune
Summary: Adrien Agreste is hit by a car and dies. Adrien Agreste wakes up alive and unharmed.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emilie Agreste, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth & Nathalie Sancoeur, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Emilie Agreste & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 17
Kudos: 39





	A Sorry Epitaph

Adrien wakes up on a cold table.

That’s _weird,_ and as he sits up to get off it, he doesn’t recognise the dark empty room he’s in either.

He can’t remember getting here either, in fact the last thing he remembers is…

Oh.

The car.

Impact.

Pain. 

He looks around again. This is no hospital ward. This is a _morgue._

But Adrien’s not dead. In fact, as he looks down at his body he discovers that he’s not even injured. As it happens he seems _absolutely fine._

Which, that’s not exactly a new thing for him, but it is as _Adrien._ Chat Noir’s come back with all his injuries healed by Ladybug’s power before but this time he hadn’t _been_ Chat Noir, and he hadn’t been injured by an akuma.

There’s no other way this makes sense though. There _must_ have been an akuma he missed, and _that_ had caused the car to hit him, and _then_ Ladybug had used her powers.

It must have been an akuma that took a look time to defeat if he ended up here. And a subtle one if people hadn’t realised what had been happening. Something like Vanisher or something.

He should find someone and let them know he’s alive. He can’t imagine what this has been like for, he freezes.

_His father._

Adrien had seen how his mother’s disappearance had affected him. It had been like all joy had drained out of his father’s life. To imagine him thinking that _Adrien_ too was dead, that would have broken him.

He needed to find someone and let people know he was alive as soon as possible. Before his father could _do_ anything that Adrien didn’t even want to think about.

This probably meant that Adrien was _never_ going to be let out of the house again but that was a matter for another time.

He pushed open the door, and a passing woman saw him and screamed.

“I’m sorry!” he held his hands up in surrender, “Please don’t be scared, I just need to find someone. A,” he had no idea who you were supposed to talk to in a hospital to confirm that you weren’t dead, “doctor or someone? Or to call my family?”

He only realises on seeing his empty hand then that there’s no ring on his finger. He’s going to be in _so_ much trouble with Ladybug, and he doesn’t want to imagine what might have happened to Plagg _,_ or who might have taken him.

Because if this _was_ an akuma, and there’s no other explanation that makes sense, then that means _Hawkmoth_ might have his ring right now.

Adrien might have failed all of Paris by not looking both ways when he crossed the road.

He _really_ needs to get this sorted out. First he needs to let his father know he’s alive, and _then_ he needs to find a way to contact Ladybug and tell her about the ring if she doesn’t already know.

Only even though he manages to calm down the woman in the corridor and she brings him to a reception desk to call the appropriate people it turns out it’s bizarrely hard to convince people that Adrien _is_ in fact alive, and not an illusion or a magic zombie or something, which seems unfair when Ladybug brings people back to life _all the time._

It must have been a really subtle akuma attack.

He can’t help but worry about the fact no-one’s come for him either. Not his father. Not Nathalie. Not even his bodyguard. Someone _had_ said they’d call them but now he’s wondering if they were lying.

“I’m sorry,” a familiar voice breaks through the tumult surrounding him, “I need to talk to Adrien?”

“Miss Ladybug,” the Doctor turns around to Ladybug, “Was this an akuma? We didn’t hear anything.”

She’s looking at Adrien like she can’t quite believe he’s there, but she manages to answer the doctor. “I’m can’t talk about specifics, but yes,”

He relaxes at that confirmation.

And then when _Ladybug_ confirms Adrien’s fine and asks for privacy she gets it.

Adrien can’t help but covet that sort of respect even though he completely understands why she gets it. After all, “Ladybug,” he breathes out in awe, “You brought me back again?”

She looks behind her to check they’re alone, and shakes her head, “Not me. Not this time. I am _so_ sorry Chat Noir.”

“What?” Much as he’d meant to confess the situation to her it’s instinct now to deny it even confused as he is by her denial, “I'm not,”

“You don't have to lie anymore,” she holds out his ring, “I’m sorry. Here. This is yours.”

“But,” he asks as he slips the ring on, “How did you _know?_ Did you get some sort of notification when I lost the ring or?”

Plagg flies out of the ring, and immediately nuzzles the side of his face, but he sounds sad when he says, “I’m sorry kid. It was your father.”

Adrien stares at Ladybug, that doesn’t make any sense, how could it have been, _“My father?_ ”

“He took the ring when you were,” Plagg grimaces, “out, and discovered what it was when he put it on.”

* * *

Darkness is broken by the thrum of life under the ring and Plagg manifests in relief only for it all to get swept away when he comes face to face with Adrien’s joke of a father.

“You’re not Adrien,” he says dumbly.

The man just stares at him, and Plagg ignores him turning round to find Adrien lying lifeless on a steel table.

“No,” he says but he can't deny the truth of the battered body in front of him, and he’d _been there_ for the impact, and he'd screamed for Adrien to transform but it had been too late by then.

And then there had been nothing he could do as he didn't have a wielder to let him manifest his powers.

Chat Noir could have survived the collision.

Adrien Agreste couldn’t.

He yowls in his grief.

Humans die.

He knows that, he’s _used_ to that. He's even used to being responsible for that.

The holders of his Miraculous die. That's true too, and again he's used to it. Used to them dying because of him too.

But Adrien was so young, and one of his favourites, and he hadn't even died as Chat Noir. Just in a stupid meaningless accident.

The fact that he knows he'll live through this, the way he's lived through all his other losses doesn't make him feel any better in the moment.

“You’re,” Adrien’s father says then stops.

Plagg sags, he's not energy for the big introduction right now in front of Adrien’s body.

But it looks like it's unnecessary as the man lets out a wordless yell of his own, then kicks over the empty table next to Adrien’s with a clatter.

Plagg hopes it hurts. Gabriel Agreste might not have been the reason Adrien _died,_ but he was certainly why his _life_ was darker than it should have been.

Then the man collects himself and it’s like watching a mask fall into place as he straightens and then says tonelessly, “Adrien was Chat Noir all along.”

“Yes,” Plagg admits because there's little point lying now.

Silence falls between them, as Adrien’s father looks at his son's body, and Plagg wonders what he’s thinking, and if he has any regrets at all. It's impossible to tell from his face.

Plagg has to be the one to break it, “You need to contact Ladybug. She needs to know, and” much as he hates it and has no interest in a new holder right now, “she needs my Miraculous.”

Something seems to spark in Adrien’s father’s dead eyes, “Ladybug, yes. I need to contact Ladybug.”

“Yes,” Plagg says uneasily, their concerns about his wielder's father coming back to him, but there’d never been any more evidence of him being Hawkmoth, “That's what I said.”

“Do you, that is, _how_ do I contact Ladybug? As myself? Or do you have a way? I could take an ad out or,”

“I can transform you.” Plagg interrupts relieved at the sign that maybe Adrien’s father is just the type of human who looks to things to be done to distract them from their grief, “then you can leave her a message.”

“How quickly will she pick up?”

“Soon enough.” Tikki’s chosen is the guardian. She ought to be able to tell when a Miraculous has changed hands, “Do you want to do it here?”

The man shakes his head, “Not here. At home.”

Then he steps up to the table with his son, and touches his forehead to brush back a piece of hair, “Goodbye Adrien. I,” he exhales, “Well it doesn't matter. I hope you’ll be happy at least.”

It’s an odd farewell to his dead son, and Plagg hadn't known either Agreste was particularly religious enough to reference an afterlife, but he's seen much odder reactions in his time so he shrugs it off.

Later that turns out to be a mistake. Then again he can’t pretend he’s not satisfied enough with how it resolves.

* * *

There must be more to the story, but Plagg isn’t talking so Adrien has to ask, “ _And?_ ”

“I talk him he needed to contact Ladybug, and he agreed to.”

“ _Really?”_ That’s not what he’d expected at _all. “_ He didn’t take me being Chat Noir badly?”

Plagg demurs, “He didn’t really talk about it.”

Giving up on his Kwami Adrien appeals to Ladybug this time.

“So what, he contacted you?”

“Yeah, gave me the fright of my life.”

* * *

Marinette cries into Nino’s shoulder. He’s crying into her hair. They’ve left the hospital where no one would let them in to see Adrien, but from what they can see on the news it seems pretty clear he didn’t survive that collision even if his father hasn’t put out a statement yet.

“This is all our fault isn’t it?” She says, “If we hadn’t convinced Adrien to sneak out then,”

“Adrien sneaks out _plenty_ of times,” Nino chokes out and she doesn’t correct his tense, “If anything it’s his dad’s fault for never teaching him how to cross a road.”

“Nino,” she warns him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure he’s suffering too, but think of all the things Adrien never got to do, and now he’s _never_ going to get to, and that’s all his fault.”

“The car wasn’t his fault,” She reminds him.

Nino hugs her tighter, “It wasn’t ours either.”

“Hey,” Alya’s voice seems too harsh for their mourning tentative as her greeting sounds, “I’m glad I found you guys.”

Marinette doesn’t feel able to answer.

Thankfully Nino does, “You heard the news?” 

“Yeah, I saw on twitter. I can’t really believe it.”

Marinette looks up from Nino’s shoulder to see her friend and Alya looks likely to cry too. It comes to her slowly that Alya probably has some sort of dibs on Nino’s shoulder as his girlfriend, but Marinette had known him _first_ that has to count for something, and Adrien had been her, had been her...

He hadn’t been anything more to her than he’d been to Alya in the end. Adrien had always been kind and friendly to her but that was just how he was. Marinette hadn’t been anything special to him.

There’s a rattle in her bag, which _could_ be mistaken for a vibrating phone, but it’s not, and Marinette let’s go of Nino and stands up, “I’m going to get something to drink.” and gestures to the café across the street.

She’s probably dehydrated from the crying anyway.

“Good idea,” Alya says, and Nino let’s her go wordlessly.

She buys a bottle of pop, and asks to use their toilet and once she has privacy she lets Tikki out.

“What is it?”

“I think you should transform,” Tikki says looking nervous.

“Why?” Marinette asks, “Is there an akuma?”

She’d _like_ an akuma right now. It’s a horrible thought but she’d like to punch something. To fix something. To save someone the way she can’t save Adrien.

Tikki shakes her head, “I just think you should.”

Marinette doesn’t understand but she trusts Tikki so she does.

There’s a message on her yo-yo from Chat Noir.

“Come to the Agreste house. We need to talk.”

The mention of Adrien’s house puts a lump in her throat. Had, had Chat Noir _known_ Adrien somehow? What does he need to tell her? Or-

She detransforms, “Tikki, was Adrien Chat Noir?”

“I can’t tell you who Chat Noir is. You know that.” Her tone is apologetic but that doesn’t make Marinette feel better.

“Even if he’s _dead_?”

“Even then.”

“Can you tell me if someone _else_ using his ring would come up as Chat Noir on my yo-yo?”

“I’m sorry,” Tikki says, “It would.” 

Marinette doesn’t feel like she can breathe but, “I think I have to go to Adrien’s house.”

She might never have had the chance for _Adrien_ to be anything to her, but _Chat Noir_ and his Miraculous is her responsibility.

* * *

“I'm sorry,” Plagg says to Ladybug, “I should have realised something was up and warned you.”

“You couldn't have known Plagg.” She replies as kind and comforting as she always is.

“I _should_ have. I knew they were acting weird, I should have known they were up to something.”

A metaphorical pit opens in Adrien’s stomach.

* * *

“Adrien has food for you I presume,” Gabriel Agreste says once they’re safely back to the house.”

“Camembert.” Plagg confirms and follows the man into the kitchen where he goes opens the fridge, and grabs a wheel of cheese that he throws at Plagg, “But, we _do_ need to contact Ladybug.”

“And I will.” Adrien’s father says, “But first I’ve things to do.”

“It’s important.” Plagg tries to explain, “What if Hawkmoth attacks? She’ll be waiting for Chat Noir and he won’t be there.”

That’s not entirely true. Of course _Tikki_ knows who Chat Noir is. She can’t tell her chosen _that_ but she can warn her Chat Noir won’t be coming. Plagg isn’t going to share that though.

Adrien’s father seems unconcerned by the issue and continues going up the stairs wherever he’s heading, “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Besides she’s all those other heroes to rely on hasn’t she?”

“She does. But they’re not Chat Noir.”

“That’s true. Adrien was,” he pauses, “he was a _good_ Chat Noir wasn’t he?”

“The best.” Plagg agrees, and he means it.

“That’s something I suppose.” The man comes to a stop in front of Adrien’s door, “Here.”

Plagg looks at him.

“Go in that room and do not come out until I say so.”

That. _That_ was an order, and with Adrien as his holder Plagg’s got unused to receiving those and it makes him uncomfortable. And _angry,_ because he doesn’t owe this man anything.

“Why?” He asks, as if he has any real choice.

Adrien’s father glares at him. “I want to mourn my son in peace.”

Then he leaves him alone in a bedroom that seems cavernous without the boy whose personality usually fills it.

Plagg sadly looks at the photos of Adrien with his friends he’s stuck up next to his computer, and the photo of his missing mother framed by it. At least _she_ won’t be missing Adrien.

The others though.

He hates that poor Ladybug is going to discover she’s lost not only Adrien but also Chat Noir. Plagg will grieve Adrien the way he grieves all his chosen but at least he’s suffered this before, it’s not the first blow it’s going to be for the girl.

And Ladybug _needs_ a Chat Noir, especially with Hawkmoth out there, and Plagg doesn’t _want_ to pick a new holder. Not right now. But for her sake he will. Even though he knows _she’s_ not going to want to pick a new partner either.

He tries to think about Adrien and Marinette’s friends. There’s no one he wants to wield his Miraculous out of all of them. Maybe this time he’ll chose someone she doesn’t know if she lets him. It might be easier.

He doesn’t know _what_ she might want. Tikki might but he doesn’t know her well enough. He has no idea how badly she’ll take it. Tikki’s wielders are usually resilient but he knows this will be a true test for her.

He flies round the room but there’s nothing he wants to do there, not when Adrien isn’t there.

Taking a bit of the camembert he sighs. It doesn’t taste the same. Not without Adrien beside him screwing up his nose at the smell.

Just as he thinks he’s about to go crazy he’s suddenly summoned to another location.

He comes to face-to-face with Adrien’s father’s assistant.

“Hello?” He says unsure. She must have been told from the lack of surprise on her face but Adrien’s father is nowhere to be seen.

Nathalie holds up her hand with his Miraculous on it, “Mr Agreste wanted me to keep an eye on you.”

“I don’t suppose I could get _you_ to contact Ladybug now?” He tries.

“Not like this,” she says and he belatedly notices she’s wearing her dressing gown and has her hair down, “And Mr Agreste _will_ contact Ladybug. I promise you that. We’re going to make things right.”

“Can’t he do that _now?_ ” he asks without much hope.

“Not yet,” Nathalie says, and sits down at the dressing table and starts applying her make-up.

Plagg flies around the room taking in the wood and the patterned rug on the floor, “Is this your room then?” It didn’t look much like the rest of the house, “Adrien banned me from investigating it. He said I shouldn’t invade you your privacy.”

Nathalie smiles weakly at him, “Did he? He was such a good boy wasn’t he?”

“He was.” Plagg agrees, “I didn’t know you knew that.”

“I did care for him. Do care for him. I wish I’d said that now.”

“Maybe you should have stood up to his father for him once,” Plagg snaps, but at her flinch he does regret it a little because Adrien _had_ known that, “I’m sorry.”

“No it’s fine. You’re not wrong.” She sighs and puts down the lipstick she’d been applying, “Gabriel does love Adrien too. He, _we,_ thought we were doing the right thing for him.”

“How could _that_ have been the right thing?” 

Nathalie answers him with a question of his own, “Did he at least _like_ being Chat Noir? I know it was a big responsibility but, I always thought Chat Noir looked like he liked being the hero. When it wasn’t that close a battle anyway.”

“He did.” He liked getting out of this house, and getting away from the pressure of being _Adrien Agreste,_ but he doesn’t say that to her. It seems unnecessary in the circumstances, when she’s already showing more emotion than he’s ever seen from her.

“Good. I’m glad.” Her voice wavers, “Knowing that that was all Adrien. That it was _Adrien_ getting hurt like that is, it’s hard. I wish I’d known before.”

“What would you have done? Tried to ground him? Tried to take his Miraculous?”

She doesn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

She takes her hair in one hand, “I feel I should do something different with it. Adrien always used to try to convince me to.”

Plagg watches as she plaits a thick strand on one side then pulls it back, and weaves it into a bun with the rest of her hair.

“That doesn’t seem very different.”

She shrugs, “It’s something.”

Then she stands up, and opens one of the garment bags hanging from her wardrobe. A bunch of black organza bursts out which reveals itself to be a dress. Her lips twist, “It’s a bit much isn’t it?”

“A bit much for what.”

She hesitates, “A funeral.”

“Oh.” He says dully. That makes sense. It seems quick but between different places and times he can never keep human death rituals straight, “Do people usually not dress like that for them?”

“No.” She says and sounds annoyed, and opens up the other two bags eventually settling on what looks to Plagg’s eyes, a more restrained shorter dress.

* * *

“I don’t understand,” Adrien says, even though he thinks he’s starting to have an idea, “What did he do? _How_ am I alive?”

Ladybug and Plagg look at each other, then Ladybug looks at the floor, and sighs.

Then she looks up, “I am _so_ so sorry Adrien, but when I went to your house, your father was already using your Miraculous, and he and his assistant managed to get mine off me. I wasn’t properly prepared. I should have stopped him.”

* * *

She goes to Adrien’s house as Marinette and at halts in panic at the number of reporters around there. Stupid not to have thought of that. She'd thought it would be polite to go to the gate as Ladybug in the circumstances but now she second guesses that.

And then third guesses it.

If this summons is because Adrien was Chat Noir what does it matter if people work it out now he's gone?

And if it's that Hawkmoth is somehow responsible for Adrien’s death then she doesn’t care about _that_ being kept secret. The world deserves to know the fullness of Hawkmoth’s depravity and of Adrien’s no doubt noble attempt to stop him.

Eventually she transforms and goes to the gate. Ladybug has every right to pay her respects.

Plus if this _is_ a trap then at least this way the world will know where she went.

She gets a sense of deja vu when she requests entry and the camera swivels down and then she has the dislocating sense of the ground disappearing from beneath her as she realises that she’ll never have a reason to do that again now Adrien’s gone.

This time Adrien’s father’s assistant let's her in the gate without question and then in the door.

Marinette vaguely notices the women is wearing a knee length black dress that seems less business like than her usual suit, but most of her attention is taken by the man who’s standing on the halfway landing of the staircase and who's transformed by Chat Noir’s Miraculous but clearly isn’t Chat Noir.

“Hello Ladybug,” he says, “I’d say good afternoon, but it's not really one is it?”

“Who am I talking to?” she asks, because looking at the portrait behind him this man could be Adrien’s father, but he could just as easily be Hawkmoth.

“Do you know I didn’t decide on a name? Though it doesn't matter. I'm not planning to keep it after all.”

“You're not?” She asks not without trepidation.

“No,” he starts walking down the stairs, “It was quite a shock to take a ring from my son’s body and discover he was Chat Noir all this time.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Are you?” he comes to a stop in front of her, “I don’t suppose it matters unless,”

“Unless?”

He reaches out and takes hold of her shoulders, “Is there anything you can do?”

“Do?”

“For Adrien. Your Miraculous cure brings people back doesn't it?”

“I'm sorry,” she says, “that only fixes damage created by a Miraculous. I can’t save Adrien.”

“Are you sure there’s _nothing_ you can do?”

The idea of the wish she knows could be made once she has Adrien’s ring comes to mind but she discards it immediately. She’d do _anything_ else to get Adrien back but she can't inflict this pain on someone else. He wouldn't want her to. She couldn’t look him in the eye if she did it.

“I see.” Adrien’s father says, “That’s unfortunate.”

A tug at her ear reminds her there’s someone else in the foyer here, and she pulls her head away from his assistant’s hands in shock, “What are you doing?”

His grip on her shoulders stops her moving further away, even as she realises the women is trying to remove her earring, and she suddenly realises in horror that even if he’s not Hawkmoth he _has the grimoire,_ and with that, and what he’s doing he must know about the wish.

Marinette manages to free herself from his grip by stomping on his foot, and taking her chance to break away in the momentary loosening of his hold but Nathalie must have managed to get the back of the earring off because without anyone touching her ear in a flash of red light her transformation drops. The stud must have fallen out as she moved.

Without Ladybug’s strength Adrien’s father easily knocks her to the floor, and a moment later his assistant must find the earring because she makes a triumphant noise, and then calls over, “Have you got her?”

“For now. Could you do the honours?”

He tilts his head, and she comes over and carefully slides the earring in one ear. If it wasn’t for the situation Marinette would almost find the image funny.

As it is she continues to struggle but she’s at a double disadvantage here without her Miraculous enhanced strength and with their relative sizes.

“You have to stop this.” Marinette tries again, even as she can feel Nathalie going for her other ear, “I want him back too but this is _wrong,_ Adrien wouldn’t want this.”

“You can’t know that.”

She does. “He _wouldn’t._ ”

“Perhaps not, but then Adrien doesn’t know what’s best for him.”

“And you think _you_ do?” She spits out, “Adrien _hated_ his life here, you never let him have a normal childhood; too busy trying to mould him into the perfect son you could monetise for your brand.”

She’s struck at something from how his jaw tenses, but if anything he just grips her tighter.

“And _you_ think you know Adrien so well? How long have you known him exactly? You never even saw him with his mother.”

Nathalie gets the other earring out, and walks over to put it in Adrien’s father’s other ear and even though she knows it won’t help she keeps talking, “I know you weren’t here for him after she left.”

“You’re right,” he agrees, “That’s why I have to do this.”

Tikki manifests at his side, “You shouldn’t do this. _Please._ There’s a cost.”

“I’m aware.” He bites out but he doesn’t do anything more, and when Marinette tries again to get free, it’s just as ineffective as the other times.

“I can take her sir,” his assistant offers, and he’s lets go of Marinette, but Nathalie pulls her back, and then up to her feet before she can do anything.

“Please,” she tries again, “I need my Miraculous and Chat Noir’s.”

“Why?” His expression looks dangerous, “To protect the city from Hawkmoth and Mayura? I can promise you _they_ won’t be an issue anymore.”

She stares at him in horror. “What did you do?”

“You don’t need to worry about that, but I can guarantee you they’ll be dead by the end of this day. You can find the Butterfly and Peacock in the desk in there, and you can take these two back after as well.”

 _“Take?”_ A new fear raises itself in her head, “What do you mean take?”

He ignores her, “Tikki, Plagg combine.”

She expects him to act immediately but he hesitates for a moment, until his assistant says, “Do it Gabriel.”

He smiles weakly, “Together then?”

“Together,” the woman confirms, sending Marinette’s mind off into new directions trying to work out what _that_ means.

And then it all makes sense as Gabriel Agreste makes his wish to bring back his wife and son, before collapsing to the ground. Bruising and cuts develop on his body, as he slumps down with no visible impact creating them, and impact is the word from how part of his ribcage crashes inwards.

Knowing she’s seeing what happened to Adrien makes her want to throw up.

It's such an uncomfortable sight it takes Marinette a moment to realise the force has gone from the grip holding her and when she shoves herself out of her hold there’s nothing to stop her as Nathalie Sancoeur also falls to the floor.

Unlike Mr. Agreste there’s no marks on her body and Marinette wonders uneasily what exactly happened to Adrien’s mother.

“Hello?” she calls out, as if Emilie Agreste might have just magically reappeared in the house, but there's no response.

She's not sure she was expecting one.

After all the woman Mr Agreste has traded for his wife hasn’t _disappeared,_ so it sort of makes sense Mrs Agreste wouldn’t just reappear.

She looks around at the two bodies at her feet.

This is failure for a holder of the Ladybug Miraculous and for a Guardian.

But over the blood rushing through her ears all she can think of is _Adrien._

Adrien who should be alive now.

Adrien who’s Chat Noir.

Adrien who was both the boy she loved from afar, and the partner she couldn’t fight without.

Adrien who's just lost another parent and whose other one who may or may not come back.

Even as she slides the ring off and takes the earrings off his father's body all she can think is that the wounds she's seeing now in him had been on Adrien’s body before this.

She's not sure if that makes her a bad person.

It probably makes her a bad Guardian, but then maybe none of this _should_ have been her responsibility alone. She isn't even out of collége.

Right now, what she needs to do is tell Adrien.

And take all every bit of Miraculous jewellery here out of this house.

* * *

Adrien isn’t sure why he’s asking when he’s pretty sure he knows the answer but, “He made the wish didn’t he?”

“I really am sorry Adrien,” Ladybug says as if that could help in any way at all.

“Where is he now? Who did it take, do you know?” Because _that’s_ the real question. Whether his father’s dead or if he’s been restrained somewhere because he’s a murderer.

“He sacrificed himself.” She says, and he thinks he’s known that deep down since they said his father had taken the ring, “And Nathalie.”

That does shock him, and he has to grip the bed to ground himself, “ _What?_ Why did it take Nathalie too? It’s supposed to be an _equal_ price.”

There’s pity in Ladybug’s eyes and he hates it. He doesn’t want that from her. He doesn’t know what he does want but it isn’t that.

“He, um, he wished for your mom back too.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Ladybug admits.

* * *

The hiss of air escaping wakes Emilie Agreste. It throws her a little when she opens her eyes to darkness broken by a single ray of light in a high ceilinged room and then she realises _exactly_ where she is.

She pushes herself unsteadily to her feet. She doesn’t remember going in the casket but she knows what this means.

Gabriel’s _done_ it.

He’s _saved_ her.

They can be a family again. She’s getting another chance. Oh, the next time she sees Amélie there’s going to be a warm glow in her chest because this has proved once and forever who has the better husband.

Only her husband isn’t here.

“Gabriel?” She calls out into the vast emptiness of the room but the only response she gets is a faint echo.

It feels like ice pierces through her excitement. If he’d won comfortably, if Gabriel was in control of the situation then he’d _be_ here. He’d make the wish where he could welcome her back.

And he’s _not_ here.

Her mind conjures up scenario after scenario. Gabriel injured. Gabriel trapped. Gabriel having made some deal with the wielders of the Miraculous they’d needed to make the wish at the cost of his freedom.

She forces herself to calm down.

It will be fine. It _has_ to be fine. If Gabriel’s in trouble then she’ll rescue him this time. It’s not like she doesn’t owe him after this.

She tries to take another step and has to sit down, she doesn’t understand why she feels so _weak._ Of course her muscles haven’t been used for, her thoughts stutter, she doesn’t know how long it’s been, she doesn’t know if she’ll recognise her son and her husband or if time will have altered them.

No. Gabriel wouldn’t have let this take too long. He’s never been one to hesitate. It won’t have been too long. It _can’t_ have been too long.

That doesn’t explain her exhaustion though. The Miraculous should have returned her to perfect health. That’s what her husband would have wished for.

A piece of paper on the floor by her stasis pod catches her eye.

She picks it up, it’s just about visible in the dim light, “Dear Emilie,” it starts.

She reads it and her heart plummets into her stomach.

What’s happened, what Gabriel’s _done;_ Emilie would kill her husband if he wasn’t already dead.

Grabbing at the pod she’d been lying in she forces herself up. She _needs_ to find Adrien and she needs to take control of this mess he’s left her.

* * *

“I don’t understand how he defeated you,” Adrien blurts out, “All this time you’ve never fallen to an akuma, never been beaten by Hawkmoth or Mayura, and you couldn’t stop _my father_ from taking your earrings.”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” she tries to justify, “Nathalie had one of my earrings half out before I knew what was happening.”

“Did she _know_ he was going to sacrifice her?” Adrien says.

“Yeah,” Plagg’s the one to answer, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she knew. She wanted this kid, don’t blame yourself.”

 _“Why?_ Why would she sacrifice herself like that?”

Plagg looks uncomfortable, “She did care about you kid, she told me that, and that she regretted not saying that to you.”

“But she didn’t die for _me,_ my father did that.”

“I don’t think either of them wanted to sacrifice the other,” Plagg admits.

“So they decided to _both_ sacrifice themselves?” He can feel hysterical laughter building up in his chest, “Do you know I thought whatever was going on between them was a _good_ thing, I thought I might actually have a chance of having a family again, and instead I’ve got _this._ ”

* * *

Adrien’s father is sat on the lower steps in dark suit that matches the one in the picture behind him. Nathalie walks down to him.

“Are you having second thoughts? She asks sending a spike of panic through Plagg and making him wonder if he should have just ran to Tikki in the first place. He just hadn’t expected the resistance to giving back Chat Noir’s ring to come from _her._ It’s always the quiet ones he supposed. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to the woman who attempted to take charge of Adrien’s life on his father’s behalf.

“No.” Adrien’s father says, “I have to do this. You know that.”

Nathalie makes a wordless sound of agreement while Plagg relaxes, gladder than ever that he might actually be getting out of this house. 

Then he loses sight of them for a moment as the she slides his Miraculous off her finger, and when he regains it its back on Adrien’s father’s.

And his apprehension rises again as the man takes his assistant’s hand and says, “You don't have to you know?”

She shakes her head. “I want to. I’d do it even if you weren’t. If that would make you happy,”

“It wouldn’t.” He grimaces, “Call it cowardice if you like but the idea you’re suggesting-to have one of them back and not the other and to lose you? I don't want that world. They'd never forgive me. I’d never forgive myself.” His other hand goes up to cup her face, “I’m not sure I can forgive myself anyway.”

She visibly squeezes the hand she’s holding, “Have you thought about the fact it would be the same for me? Perhaps not in the details, but in the essentials?”

“Nathalie,” he leans forward so their foreheads touch, “I don’t deserve you.”

“None of us deserve this.” She says, then she looks up and his head inclines slightly further forward and they’re kissing.

Plagg had forgotten just how mushy it looked when humans did that. Maybe he should have, then he remembers that Adrien’s _gone,_ and it doesn’t matter whether or not he’d encouraged him to kiss the girl behind Ladybug’s mask because he never did, and he’s never going to get the chance to now.

It makes him annoyed at the people in front of him, that they’d get this when Adrien never will.

He’s only half-annoyed though. He’s see humans react like this to death before, much as he’d very much rather not, it seems to be a thing some of them do. Though he’s really not sure what the point of the whole getting dressed up thing had been when they look distinctly ready to mess that up, from how they seem to be trying to mould together. She’s almost on his thigh at this point.

That conversation does worry him though. It sounds like they plan to do _something_ and though he can hardly take his ring off Adrien’s father’s finger, he thinks maybe he _should_ go after Tikki.

There’s a clink that breaks him out of his thoughts, and seems to have distracted the humans too from how they’re stopped.

“Sorry,” Adrien’s father says, as he reaches up to his glasses, and starts to pull then off then but Nathalie stops him with her hand.

“No, I think that was a good thing. I don’t know if I would have stopped without it, and we should stop, we’re come so far without _that_ betrayal we shouldn’t fall into it now we’re at the end.”

“I find myself not caring. Aren’t we doing _enough_ for them? Shouldn’t you get something for yourself?”

“I think I just have. And I think that I’d rather _not_ have them find that evidence on my body. It’s going to look bad enough as it is.”

 _Body._ Their plan suddenly fell into place for Plagg as all that earlier conversation made a horrible horrible sense, and he needed to _leave,_ he needed to warn Tikki and make sure Ladybug never came here, or at least without back-up.

He started to carefully back away hoping he could break through those earlier commands.

“You, you think they’d look at _that_ at an autopsy, that’s,” Adrien’s father broke off and his eyes locked right on Plagg, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“I,” he searched for an excuse.

Gabriel Agreste didn’t give him time to make one.

“Plagg Claws out.”

* * *

There’s a knock at the door, and Adrien is glad it wasn’t a second earlier because, “ _Mom?”_

“Adrien,” her smile is wider than she’s ever seen it, but there’s tears in her eyes, “Thank god you’re ok at least.”

She runs to the beds and embraces him, and Adrien let’s go in his mother’s arms. “Mom,” he says between sobs, “Father’s,”

“I know, I know,” she says as she soothingly rubs circles on his back, “He left me a letter, and I,” her breath hitches, “I saw his body.”

“You did?” Adrien asks, “Is it bad?”

“Oh my baby, knowing that that had happened to _you_ was the worst thing I’ve ever known, I,” she almost sounds surprised at herself, “I think I can almost forgive him for leaving us for saving you. I can’t imagine what it was like for him seeing you. But don’t worry, you don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.”

“No,” Adrien realises that, “I _want_ to see him. And Nathalie. I want to say goodbye. I want to make it real.”

“You don’t have to rush your decision.” His mother says. “This must all be quite a shock.”

“Yeah. That’s one way of putting it.”

“Um,” Ladybug breaks their comfortable silence, “Mrs Agreste?”

“Yes?” His mother replies.

“Did you reappear in the house? I looked for you but I didn’t see you there.”

“We must have missed each other,” his mother says, “It’s a pity. I’d have liked to have been the one to break things to Adrien.”

Ladybug looks awkward, “Do you, do you remember what happened to you?”

She shakes her head, “I’m sorry. The last thing I remember was saying good night to Adrien one night in the house, and then I woke up in my room to Gabriel’s letter.”

Once again all Ladybug has to offer is, “I’m so sorry.”

“He brought me back. And he brought back Adrien. I’m always going to have that.”

“Did he explain _how_ he did it in the letter?”

“Oh,” his mom’s eyes widen, “You mean about the Miraculous and the Wish? Yes he told me. I suppose it’s not something you’d want bandied around.”

Ladybug looks relieved, “That’s it exactly it. I don’t want anybody else trying to make this Wish and setting themselves up as a new Hawkmoth and Mayura to get that chance.”

“Yeah, the pair we have are bad enough,” he agrees despite the turmoil inside of him.

“Oh, um,” Ladybug bites her lip, “They’re not going to be a problem anymore.”

“ _What?”_

“Your father had the Butterfly and Peacock brooches, I’m not sure if he took them from them as revenge for you or if,”

“He was Hawkmoth.” Adrien interrupted her, “I don’t want to think about that possibility right now.”

His father’s just _killed himself_ to return Adrien to life. Thinking that he might have been fighting him all this time is the absolute last thing he wants to do.

“Adrien,” she tries.

“Can you just go? I know this isn’t your fault but I just need time.”

“Of course you do, and I understand that but,”

His mother squeezes his shoulder, “We and Ladybug do need to work out how to present this to the press. It might be best if Adrien and I left Paris for a while. We could claim he was still in recovery, and distance his survival and my reappearance from what happened with his father.”

Ladybug frowns, “For how long? I don’t want to make Adrien have to miss school and his friends just because I want to keep this secret.”

His mother looks between them in confusion, “School?”

“Oh right,” he admits sheepishly, “I go to school now.”

His mother looks horrified, “Your father sent you to _school?”_

“He didn’t _want_ to,” Adrien tries to defend his father, “But I wanted to. I _like_ school.”

“I see,” his mother says but she still looks thrown, “Then if that’s what you’re sure you want I’m not going to pull you out but I still think some time away might be a good idea.”

“Maybe,” Adrien agreed, in some ways he wanted to be as far from Paris as possible. 

* * *

In the end he and his mother do go away for a while.

Though she must re-appear legally before they come back to Paris, because somehow she manages to take charge of making sure the police investigation into his father and Nathalie’s death go away. He thinks it might have been through some deal with Chloé’s father but he doesn’t really know and he doesn’t really care.

The papers call it a tragic case of murder-suicide due to a misunderstanding over Adrien’s survival.

They’re not even that wrong.

Emilie Agreste reappears in Paris and plays the perfect wronged widow. She woke up with a case of amnesia in a city miles away and came back to a dead husband, and a son who thought he’d been orphaned after a traumatic injury.

Adrien knows that’s not what happened.

He doesn’t believe she doesn’t know what happened to her.

He doesn’t believe his father didn’t either. 

He never pushes.

After all he’s already lost his father and Nathalie. He can’t lose his mother too. Not _again._

Especially when she makes it so easy to love her, in a way his father never had. She comes to every single event at his school she possibly can. She comes to every fencing match, and every recital.

In some ways it’s almost smothering.

He’d got used to his father and Nathalie’s more hands off approach, and he’s not _complaining,_ he’s not, but it’s an adjustment certainly especially with the interest she takes in his friends. Suddenly he can have whatever friends over he wants, but _only_ if they come to the house. She gets very worried whenever Adrien wants to go out without her.

Which. It’s understandable. Especially after losing his father and what she knows had happened to Adrien.

But. 

In some ways though it’s _easy,_ because sometime in his time away after Adrien’s not-death and his father’s actual death things seem to have changed amongst his friends.

When he goes back to school Nino and Marinette seem closer, and things between Alya and Nino seem strained. He’s suddenly reminded that he and Alya are interlopers between the two childhood friends.

In some ways it’s a relief, because Adrien is torn between anger at Ladybug for letting his father do it, and knowing that that’s unjustified, but either way it puts a strain on his relationship with Ladybug, and through her completely unfairly on his relationship with Marinette because she reminds him of Ladybug.

Sometimes, much as he’d never want to lose Plagg, he wishes that he wasn’t Chat Noir. Oddly though Chat Noir seems to be the one exception to his mother’s protectiveness.

Not that there’s not much need for Chat Noir and Ladybug without Hawkmoth.

He never finds out for certain if his father was Hawkmoth. He’s still not sure if he cares. He should. He knows he should. He just doesn’t know if he has the energy when it seems pretty clear _what_ he was doing it for.

Because somehow his timetable is still exhausting between everything he had before, plus the self-defence lessons his mother insists he needs as Chat Noir, plus the fact that _Adrien_ Agreste resurfaces as a face of _Gabriel_ the brand.

He’s met the new head designer. She’s nice, and somehow managed to steer the brand through the controversy of his father’s death.

He finds himself bonding with Kagami. Unlike his school friends _she_ doesn’t seem to expect him to find time he doesn’t have in his busy schedule, and she understands what it’s like to lose a father to himself.

Six months after his father’s death he asks her out with his mother’s approval.

His relationship with Felix improves too, as his cousin seems to lose his antipathy towards him.

Perhaps it’s because it’s hard to hold a grudge about Adrien missing Felix’s father’s funeral when he’d _also_ missed his own father’s funeral

He’d still been in his faux recovery.

He has to remind himself not to blame Ladybug for that too. For what she’d agreed to with his mother.

His mother takes him to visit his father’s grave regularly with them both dressed stylishly in black.

When he goes to visit the wall in the cemetery with Nathalie’s ashes he has to sneak out. He’d mentioned the idea to his mother _once_ and she’d snapped in a way she’s _never_ done to him before.

Any mention of Nathalie at all causes her to press her lips together tightly and he’s learnt not to mention the woman who was there for most of his life, even though sometimes he wants to scream at her that she shouldn’t be jealous of a woman who _died_ to brought her back, and who at least never had an acknowledged relationship with his father whatever was going on there.

His mother coughs a lot these days. She gets dizzy. It never seems to get any worse but it never goes away either.

She’d been ill before she disappeared but that had been worse than this. _This_ is like what Nathalie had been like before she died.

It makes Adrien wonder about his own life. About whether he has the health of a teenager or a middle-aged man. He’s no way to find out.

* * *

A year after his father and Nathalie’s deaths the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous brooches are stolen from Marinette’s bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> ...I'll write something nice next time?


End file.
